Scout Rifles are used primarily by Infiltrators for taking objectives, hacking, scouting, or frequently finding themselves in head-to-head combat.

Each empire has 2 types of Scout Rifles:

A lower-recoil, slightly faster-firing (than a semi-auto sniper rifle) semi-auto scout rifle with a mag-size of 12 bullets. It has 2 more bullets than its semi-automatic Sniper Rifle counterpart (albeit with less damage at range).

The full-auto scout rifles are best used within 15-50 metres, with a focus on headshots due to their extremely reliable full-auto accuracy; with this, you can out-damage even the dreaded "heavy assault with their shields up", by focusing fire into the neck and head. If they were to try to do the same, they would have a much lower percent of hits (hopefully due to their aim jumping from being shot in the face, or from the naturally higher recoil of their LMGs) and lose the DPS battle by a decent margin. Alternatively, if both shooters are firing for the body, the LMG's higher damage and the HA's higher health pool will make short work of the cornered Infiltrator. Avoid moving into extremely close ranges where hip-fire can reliably hit the head, as the fully-automatic Scout Rifle loses all advantage. Also note that scout rifles except the NS-30 Vandal generally have faster reload times then it's close quarter rival, the SMG (with the exception of the AF-4 Cyclone). Whether this is a useful feature to you or not depends on how many times you have been killed because you had to reload.

Note: The maximum effective range of this weapon is very synergistic with theHSNV Scope.

The semi-auto Scout Rifle should be compared to its Sniper Rifle counterpart, where it maintains the same class advantages as the fully-automatic Scout Rifle: low recoil, no sway.

While the sniper variant has the same clip size, more damage and faster projectile speed, the scout-class advantages weigh heavily in the semi-auto Scout Rifle's favor as the engagement gets closer. There comes a tipping point where losing damage and projectile speed is minor compared to the accuracy gained by not dealing with sway or bullet drop, and the extra damage boasted by the sniper variant may not have mattered anyway, as they both kill in 1 headshot, with a quick follow up to the body (Though the Scout Rifle loses this ability at longer ranges, especially with a suppressor attached).